Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures is a favorite in my household as I have a 6 year old son who absolutely loves the mini-games. Earlier today, Todd Carson and Kelsey McNair of Sony Online Entertainment provided a panel on CWA that sought to display how the game intertwines with the Clone Wars animated series and also provided a preview as to what fans can expect in the not-too-distant future.

Todd Carson took the lead for the majority of the panel and kicked things off by describing the overall goals of Clone Wars Adventures. Essentially, Sony Online Entertainment aims to keep the TV series and game connected while making you, the player, part of the TCW universe. SOE and Lucasfilm have a tight relationship as new content is developed and the folks at SOE get to see episodes in advance in order to best plan ahead.

At this point, Clone Wars Adventures has been going strong for 3 years. Here are some of the statistics that go along with the 3-year milestone.

- Over 10 million registered users- 584 stages of gameplay- 96 trophies can be earned- 1136 items have been launched since the game's launch- Jar Jar has been "bounced" approximately 4,500,000,000 meters

From there we moved through a series of clips from Star Wars: The Clone Wars followed by clips from Clone Wars Adventures so that Todd could display how the games directly and indirectly place you within the story. Examples ranged from how the Malevolence trilogy from Season 1 has been adapted for Jedi Starfighter to how the Mon Cal battle kicking off Season 4 led to the Aquatic Assault game. These sort of comparisons made up the majority of the panel, though we did get some other tidbits and an idea of what fans can expect down the road...

- Skirmish on Carlac launched yesterday (Aug. 24) and features a snow planet where you take on Mandolorians- The previously released Battle of Umbara was the first time players could use their own character within the game. It also introduced mounts (AT-RT).

There will be four new Battle Classes that include Light Side, Trooper, Mercenary, and the Dark Side. As you progress in the game, your Battle Class will improve. At this point things are still being fine tuned and there aren't any level caps yet. Some Battle Classes may be limited to subscribers.

Look for the user interface to be updated to allow for more Force abilities and Battle Class specific abilities. Sony revealed that Force Lightning and Force Healing will be two of the new Force abilities though they are awaiting LFL approval before they can reveal others.

Last but not least, 5 new environments are scheduled to be released by December. Actually, December looks to be a big month for Clone Wars Adventures as we can expect more surprises as we move towards the end of the year. As always, we'll keep you posted!